Since arriving in office in 1994, South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) government has sought to address the imbalance of power within the state and economy between the minority white population and the majority blacks. This strategy of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), in its widest sense, has included passage of such important measures as the Employment Equity Act of 1998 and the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act of 2000 which have imposed important obligations upon employers to render the workplace demographically representative. However, in its more popular sense, BEE has come to refer to a mix of political pressures, government procurement practices and legislation, notably the Broad Based Black Empowerment Act of 2003, which is designed to advance black ownership of and control over the economy.
BEE has become one of the government's most controversial policies. Criticisms range from the argument that BEE constitutes a drag on the economy, notably by frightening away investment, to the widespread complaint that BEE has led to the creation of a small but remarkably wealthy ANC-connected ‘empowerment elite’. Such interpretations are far from groundless. However, they tend to miss the point that BEE policies constitute a logical unfolding of strategy which has been largely dictated by the ANC's own history, the nature of the democratic settlement of 1994, and the structure of the economy. This is not to argue that BEE policies and outcomes have been ‘historically inevitable’, nor that the ANC government has not had a considerable degree of autonomy in decision-making. It is to argue, first, that the ANC is inherently predisposed to pursuing some BEE-like policies; and second, that it has to do so in conditions which are not always of its own choosing. I propose that the logic and unfolding of BEE can be understood through the elaboration of ten propositions.
Proposition 1
The ANC's use of state power to assert greater black ownership and control of the commanding heights of the economy was politically necessary and inevitable given the overwhelming extent of white domination of the economy in 1994. The use of state power to assert greater black ownership and control was consistent with the decolonising principles of the ANC's theory of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR).
Two further features of the political economy need emphasising. First, settler colonialism in South Africa had provided for a greater development of capitalism than in territories where peasant commodity production predominated under colonial rule. Settler states were self-propelling. Settlers arrived as ‘fully developed capitalist man’, and with their forcible acquisition of vast supplies of land and cheap labour, a potentially productive combination immediately came into being:
In South Africa, the particular equation included also great mineral resources, and their association with British capital and African labour under settler supervision … produced very rapid economic development by world standards (Good, 1976:604).
Second, white ownership and control of productive resources were monopolised to an enormous extent. Whites controlled the state, which through the parastatals was directly contributing about 15 per cent of Gross Domestic Product by the early 1990s. The parastatals' development had been dictated by the state's need to service the ‘minerals and energy complex’ (MEC) which constituted the core of the economy (Fine & Rustomjee, 1996). Furthermore, the private sector exhibited what was officially described in 1976 as ‘an exceptionally high degree of concentration of economic power in the major divisions of the economy’ (RSA, 1977, cited in Davies et al. 1984:57). The degree of monopolisation increased substantially thereafter as political instability and international disinvestment encouraged the growth of conglomerates which spanned mining, industry and other spheres. By 1981, over 70 per cent of the total assets of the top 138 companies in South Africa were controlled by state corporations and eight private sector conglomerates (Davies et al. 1984:58). By 1985, the top six conglomerates controlled 71.3 per cent of the total assets of nonstate corporations and controlled over 80 per cent of the companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) (Davies, 1988:177; Fine & Rustomjee, 1996:108).
The ANC therefore had no option in 1994 but to use state power to promote greater black ownership and control of the economy. By the time the ANC took office, it had the advantage of being able to survey the wreck of post-colonial hopes left behind by earlier decolonisers, not least those of regimes where attempts to gain control over dependent economies through extensive nationalisation of mines, industry, services, marketing and agriculture had run foul of skills shortages, corruption and the hostility of international investors. Yet the ANC also had its own referents. One was how the National Party (NP) government after 1948 had used its control of the state to systematically promote Afrikaner control and ownership of the economy through affirmative action in the parastatals, deployment of state contracts and patronage to Afrikaner firms, and outright political pressures upon ‘English’ capital (O'Meara, 1996). The other was its theory of the NDR.
The ANC was in many ways a classic nationalist party, yet the combination of South Africa's advanced level of development with the extremity of white political oppression had thrust it into a long-established association with the SACP, whose alignment with the Soviet Union had established the framework of its theorisation of the liberation struggle. This prescribed a ‘two stage’ theory of revolution in which the NDR was outlined as the precursor to socialism, a formula which was sufficiently ambiguous to allow the co-existence of both nationalist and socialist elements within one movement. However, given the collapse of the Soviet state socialist model in 1990, revisionist thinking was thereafter to assert that there was no ‘Chinese wall’ between capitalism and socialism (Cronin, 1996). This enabled the nationalist elements which came to dominate the ANC during the political transition to quietly abandon the transition to socialism as an historical goal. However, the ANC needed to retain its identity as a ‘liberation movement’ and to remain a home for its radical and working class constituencies. The NDR therefore continued to frame the official discourse in which the ANC and its partners in the SACP and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) discussed South Africa's long term strategy, its inherent ambiguities allowing for the papering over of recurrent differences between them.
The NDR theorised relations between whites and blacks in South Africa, an independent country, as those of ‘internal colonialism’. Hence the objectives of the NDR are those of ‘internal decolonisation’: to overcome the legacy of racial oppression of the black majority; to achieve democratisation; and to transform power relations as a basis for societal equality. Whilst capitalist market forces will continue to play an important role, the skewed structure of the economy dictates that the state must assume a critical role of ensuring equitable economic growth. Inevitably, the success of the NDR will lead to the growth of a black capitalist class and black middle strata. This is viewed as a welcome development, as black – 69 notably African – people were denied education, wealth and upward mobility under apartheid, a key reason why the small black middle class had thrown in their lot with black workers in the struggle for freedom. Yet in order to prevent black capitalists and middle class elements misusing relative privilege, they should adhere to certain strict codes of behaviour, becoming a ‘patriotic bourgeoisie’. Meanwhile, the ANC is charged with mobilising all oppressed classes while also winning over those who have previously benefited from inequality. In short, the theory of the NDR (i) legitimates the ‘historic’ role of the ANC in leading South Africa; (ii) validates the need for an interventionist state to radically transform society; (iii) justifies the existence, expansion, wealth and function of a black bourgeoisie and middle class so long as they play by the rules laid down by the party; and (iv) endorses the need for cooperation with white capitalists whose objective interests may eventually lead to their incorporation into the ‘patriotic bourgeoisie’ (Southall, 2004a).
Proposition 2
The essence of the negotiated settlement was that the ANC would secure political power while simultaneously accepting the principles of market economy. If this, in shorthand, translated into ‘black’ control of politics and ‘white’ control of the economy, large-scale capital was nonetheless aware of the need to reduce its political exposure by developing alliances and class interest with aspirant black capitalists.
The adoption of market-friendly macro-economics came at the immediate expense of the poor and to the benefit of the established bourgeoisie and of the incoming senior ANC politicians. Terreblanche (2002:98) terms GEAR a ‘50 per cent’ solution, in that it excluded the poorest half of the population, and argues that in agreeing to it, the ANC became ‘trapped in the formidable web of the domestic corporate sector and the international financial establishment’.
The complement to ‘big business’ securing the shift in ANC economic policy was the need to embrace the incoming ANC elite into the direct sphere of capital. The approach was broadly two-fold: increasing the recruitment of blacks into corporate employment as managers and board members; and facilitating the rapid expansion of ANC-related black-owned business.
Randall (1996) details how large companies had been responding to external demands that they promote principles of racial equality in their employment practices since the early 1980s. ‘Black advancement’ and ‘equal opportunity’ programmes had increasingly enabled blacks to enter white corporate structures in both multinational and large domestic companies. Such initiatives were to be pursued with much greater vigour after 1994. However, the tendency, given their lack of technical and financial training, was for blacks to be appointed into mainly ‘soft’ positions in personnel, marketing and public relations. Yet as they gained experience, so the more prominent amongst these ‘corporate sophisticates’ joined an increasing throng of black ‘consultants’ and ‘conference circuit champions’ in being invited to join corporate boards. From there, it was a short step to their being appointed to head subsidiaries, form joint ventures with white business, or financed to launch their own firms.
A key aspect of the launch of black firms or joint ventures in the early 1990s was the political influence which it was assumed nascent black capitalists would hold with the new government. Some of these were former political prisoners, and hence close to or part of the ANC elite: whilst the white partners brought money capital to joint ventures, former political prisoners brought political capital (Randall, 1996:671). In some instances, the political connection was explicit. For instance, ANC notables established Thebe Investments in 1992 as an investment arm of the ANC, promising direct access to the new government to those with whom it went into business (Randall, 1996:672). However, reliance upon political connections was too unsure a way of grounding a black capitalist class which could serve as an effective ally to large-scale capital over the long term. The safer path was for large-scale capital to provide for a more solid partnership through the transfer of skills and provision of necessary funding. Randall (1996:673-675) cites the example of KKS Food Services, a company owned 66.6 per cent by Kagiso Trust Investments, in which KTI secured the establishment of an affirmative action programme whereby training of blacks would be linked to the natural attrition of white managers. Similarly, in linking up with Moribo, a subsidiary of Thebe Investments, Ster-Kinekor formed a joint venture, Ster-Moribo, and committed itself to recruiting and training black managers, and handing over the functions of finance, distribution, procurement, marketing, within five years. Such strategies flowed from the political insecurity of white capital, and the recognition by white capitalists of the need to make fundamental adaptations if they were to operate successfully under black majority rule.
Proposition 3
The creation of an instant black capitalist class after 1994 was always going to be difficult because, with few exceptions, aspirant black capitalists lacked capital. However, in taking charge of government, the ANC also inherited managementof South Africa's parastatal sector, which it immediately viewed as a vehicle for extending black control of the economy, expanding the black middle class, and promoting BEE through privatisation and procurement.
In 1994, 300-odd state-owned enterprises (SOEs) employed around 300,000 people. They ranged from financial bodies like the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), the Public Investment Commission, and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), to significant industrial undertakings and utility companies. Overall, however, the public sector was dominated by the ‘big four’ SOEs (Transnet, Denel, Telkom and Eskom). In 1999, these comprised approximately 91 per cent of estimated total assets of the top 30 SOEs (R130.8 billion), provided 86 per cent of their turnover (R76.9 billion) and 94 per cent of their net income (R7.9 billion), and employed 77 per cent of their employees (Financial Mail, 26 June 1999).
The parastatals were widely regarded as overstaffed and inefficient. It was not surprising, therefore, that the ANC initially espoused privatisation of SOEs as a key plank of GEAR. However, it was not long before the government's fervor for privatisation waned in favour of a more pragmatic approach based on retaining state control of key industries whilst disposing of parastatals' ‘non-core’ assets.
This came about for three reasons: first, the early privatisation exercise faltered in the face of financial and logistical obstacles; second, privatisation has encountered strong resistance from Cosatu; and third, given the failure of GEAR to promote envisaged inflows of foreign capital, job creation and growth, the ANC has moved away from brazenly pro-market policies towards the pursuit of a ‘developmental state’ (Gumede, 2005; Southall, 2006a).
The ANC initially viewed privatisation as a strategy for transferring state assets into black hands. The difficulties, however, were clear. Many SOEs were heavily indebted, rendering them unattractive for sale unless their debts were to be written off. Meanwhile, economic prudence dictated not only that state corporations should be transferred to entities with the capacity to run them efficiently, but also to those who could afford the large amounts of capital needed to buy them. Notwithstanding the creation of the National Empowerment Fund, whose objective was to be the buying of shares in SOEs being privatised at a discount for resale to the ‘historically disadvantaged’, the uncomfortable reality was that unrestricted privatisations would mean largely selling SOEs to established or foreign capital. It was against this background that the ANC's experiences with privatisation were therefore distinctly mixed. Particularly salutary was the outcome of the partial privatisation of Telkom in 1997. Ten per cent of its shares were put up for sale to black investors, yet the government proved unable to find sufficient appropriate buyers. When the deal was completed, the former wholly South African-owned enterprise was now 30 per cent owned by Malaysian and US interests. The collapse in the valuation of Telkom from R19bn in 1997 to R15.6bn in 2003 was to severely embarrass Ucingo Investments, an empowerment group which had managed to buy into the company, and which was subsequently forced to radically restructure its debt.
Even while shifting regarding privatisation, the ANC government recognised parastatals as ‘sites of transformation’. This had two closely related aspects. First, democratisation required that the SOEs were turned around to pursue the ANC's agenda. Second, while adhering to constraints imposed by the ‘sunset clauses’ of the transitional 1994 constitution (which guaranteed white public servants their jobs for a minimum of five years, or equivalent financial recompense), the ANC put in place top officials and managers it felt it could trust, and overhauled public sector staffing policies via strategies of ‘affirmative action’ and ‘employment equity’. By 2002, for instance, the proportion of blacks in senior management at Transnet had risen to 51 per cent and in middle management to 41 per cent, while by 2005, 58 per cent of Eskom's senior management were black (The Star, 13 June 2002; 16 April 2005). Meanwhile, the parastatals' spending power was increasingly deployed to boost black companies: for instance, Eskom, Denel and Transnet deployed a combined BEE procurement budget of R9 billion in 2001-02 (Enterprise, 31 July 2002). Just as the NP had used the state after 1948 to promote the welfare and upward mobility of Afrikaners, so now the ANC used it to favour its own constituency (Southall, 2007).
Proposition 4
The ANC was particularly keen to promote black ownership and control of the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy: mining, energy, and finance.
Three developments can usefully be highlighted. First, little time was lost in appointing key black individuals, some with strong political connections, to head the major parastatals and public financial institutions. For instance, Saki Macozoma, an influential member of the ANC's National Executive Committee, left parliament to become Deputy Managing Director of Transnet in early 1996, and was promoted to Managing Director later in the year. He was succeeded by his own deputy, Mafika Mkwanazi, when he departed Transnet for the private sector in 1999. Sizwe Nxasana, who had previously launched his own accounting firm, became Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Telkom in 1998, resigning to become CEO of FirstRand Bank in late 2005. Meanwhile, a first black Chief Executive was only appointed to Eskom as late as 2000, in contrast to Denel, which by 2004 had already had unhappy experiences with three black CEOs (Seshi Chonco for 1997, Max Sisulu 2003-04, and Victor Moche 2004-05). Although the government has now highlighted its concern to prioritise efficiency above mechanical empowerment with regard to the restructuring of the parastatals, notably by the appointment of Maria Ramos to head Transnet in 2004 and Ian Liebenberg to head Denel in mid-2005, the senior posts in the major SOEs are increasingly held by blacks. Most of these, like Mvuleni Qhena who was appointed CEO of the IDC in 2005 and Mandla Gantsho, CEO of the DBSA since 2000, have risen through the ranks of the public sector, although a minority, like Qhena's predecessor at IDC, Khaya Ngqula, (who now heads SAA) were plucked from the private sector (Financial Mail 2005-06; Southall, 2007).
Second, after delivery of the Black Economic Empowerment Commission (BEEC) Report in April 2001, the mining & energy and financial sectors were the first to be targeted by the government's subsequently more assertive empowerment strategy. This was centred around the negotiation of industry-specific, target-setting, empowerment ‘charters’.
The first of these, for the petroleum and liquid fuels industries, which actually preempted the formal handing over of the Commission's report, was signed in November 2000 by all the major oil companies, establishing a target of 25 per cent black ownership of the sector by 2014 (the bulk of this transfer to be funded by the IDC). The second, for the mining industry, was proposed by the Departmentof Mines and Energy in July 2002 and set a target of 51 per cent ownership of the sector within ten years, whilst to secure a new mining license a company would have to have an empowerment partner with at least a 30 per equity stake in existing operations. Published in the wake of a bruising battle with the industry over a mineral and resources development bill whose basic intent was to vest sovereignty over natural resources in the state, the charter was subsequently subject to intense negotiations which saw its final version emerge in a much milder form (the empowerment targets having been substantially reduced – now requiring mines to be 15 per cent owned in five years and 26 per cent in ten years, albeit with the industry agreeing to raise R100 billion to fund the transfer). Nonetheless, alarmed by the prospect of state intervention, the financial services sector published its own preemptive draft charter in July 2003, setting black ownership targets of ten per cent by 2008 and 20 per cent by 2014 in contrast to the state's 25 per cent by 2014.
There followed a rush by virtually every other sector to adopt their own charters, while government drew up its own proposed ‘codes’. Both charters and codes related to targets for black employment, training, procurement etc as well as for ownership, and there remain considerable difficulties in ensuring that they can be reconciled. Yet while the government's codes are justified by the argument that official action has been necessary to propel the private sector into adapting to the required rapid rate of change, the evidence from the minerals, energy and financial sectors is that large-scale capital, at least, is scurrying to ‘transform’, establish its credentials with government, and reduce its exposure by forging strong connections with the emergent empowerment elite. In all three sectors, major deals have been struck between established players and empowerment companies: by 2002 BEE companies' ownership of the petroleum industry had increased to 14 per cent from 5.5 per cent two years earlier; the major mining firms have all struck alliances with emergent black companies; and over the last couple of years, in one of the largest BEE deals so far, Standard Bank has announced its sale of 10 per cent of its shares to black partners (40 per cent of these going to a consortium led by tycoons Saki Macozoma and Cyril Ramaphosa), while the purchase of 50.1 per cent of the shares of ABSA Bank by Barclays (UK) would directly involve the Batho Bonke consortium led by Tokyo Sexwale and, indirectly, the Ubunthu-Batho consortium, led by Patrice Motsepe (Iheduru, 2004; Southall, 2004a and 2006).
The third aspect of government strategy, which inter-locked with personal ambition, was the ‘deployment’ of party stalwarts into these key sectors of industry with the objective of their establishing black presence at the heart of the economy. This can be illustrated by reference to the four largest black moguls at the present time:
Cyril Ramaphosa, former ANC General-Secretary, is executive chairman of the Shanduka Group (previously Millenium Consolidated Investments), which is largely funded by Old Mutual. Although he recently lost control of (what was left of) Johnnic, he has strong connections with First National Bank and Investec as well as Anglo-American/De Beers, and serves on the boards of SABMiller, Macsteel, Alexander Forbes (pensions) and Standard Bank.
Tokyo Sexwale, former Premier of Gauteng and Robben Islander, is chairmanof Mvelaphanda Holdings (mining), which he established in 1999 and which is largely funded by ABSA. He is also chairman of Northern Platinum, the Trans Hex Group, and Mvela Resources, and a director of ABSA, Goldfields, Broll and Wingate Capital SA. He is said to have the backing of Afrikaner capital through the Ruperts family, had additional connections with mining magnates Roger and Brett Kebble, and has further support from Alexander Forbes (financial services).
Saki Macozoma, who remains an influential member of the ANC's NEC and is particularly close to Thabo Mbeki, is chairman of Standard's asset management group Stanlib and Andisa Capital, but his major vehicle is Safika, which is largely funded by Standard Bank. (Safika emerged from what was the largest BEE deal yet in 2004 owning just 1.79 per cent of Standard and 2. 2 per cent of Standard's insurance subsidiary, the Liberty Group, but also owns 25 per cent of Stanlib). He also sits at the centre of a powerful network of political and public sector personal connections, as well as being close to Mzi Khumalo, the former ANC activist from KwaZulu-Natal, who has built one of the largest financial asset bases owned by black businessman with links to Rand Merchant Bank.
Patrice Motsepe, one of whose sisters is married to Cyril Ramaphosa and another to Transport Minister Jeff Radebe, is said to be South Africa's first black rand ‘billionaire’. His major vehicle is African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), the black controlled mining house created in 2004 when Motsepe, in collaboration with Harmony, took over the former Avmin mining company. He has close links to Sanlam (once the vanguard of Afrikaner nationalism) but is also funded by Nedcor (Noseweek 66, April 2005:18-19; Financial Mail 2005-06).
The prominence of the ‘fab four’ has been central to much criticism that BEE has primarily benefited a tiny black elite. Certainly, they were peculiarly favoured by South Africa's largest companies offering to sell or grant them equity stakes at advantageous terms, often financed by the sellers themselves, in return for connections to government and the black marketplace. However, although they often have to contend with the criticism that they owe their positions and wealth to large scale capital, the logic of their position is the necessity of blacks climbing quickly to the top of the monopolised corporate structure if the aims of BEE are to be realised:
First you become a financial investor to accumulate capital, because capital does not fall from the sky. Once you are accumulating capital, you can begin to acquire skills and skilled people who you can deploy in various businesses. The third stage is acquiring control of companies and beginning to be an operator, running a proper business. Part of all that would mean having capital to start your own businesses (Cyril Ramaphosa, cited by Time, June 2005).
There is no way I would support a free-enterprise system that tolerates poverty. But with five or six of us (black moguls) spread throughout the economy, that can make a difference in a fundamental way (Saki Macozoma, cited by Time, 2005).
Proposition 5
Given the underdeveloped state of black business under apartheid, aspirant black businessmen were ‘capitalists without capital’. They therefore required financial assistance from either the state or the private sector (notably banks) to leverage ownership and control of corporations.
Two broad conclusions follow. First, if aspirant capitalists were to prosper then they needed to acquire rapid access to capital. Consequently, whilst many of the empowerment deals were immensely convoluted, they revolved around the basic tenet that the only way to get significant capital into black hands was through loans or gifts (Katz, 2006). Second, if blacks were to position themselves as likely recipients of loan or gift capital, then they had to establish a track record within the corporate or public sectors, or demonstrate valuable political connections and a capacity for business. Black empowerment financing was thus overwhelmingly provided by large banks and finance houses, or state finance institutions (both routes increasingly supplemented indirectly by government procurement policies favouring recognised empowerment companies or joint ventures).
Today, twelve years after the political transition, black companies control only approximately 4 per cent of the JSE's total capitalisation. Nonetheless, an estimated R150 billion worth of BEE transactions had been concluded by mid-2005 (Standard Bank 2005), while in terms of the Financial Services Charter alone, some R125 billion of designated investments will be made available by the sector for empowerment by 2014 (although only R50 billion for transaction financing, the rest for transformational infrastructure (R25 billion), low cost housing (R42 billion), agriculture (R1.5 billion) and black small and medium business development (R5 billion)). BusinessMap (2005, 2006) has reported that conservative valuations of 250 BEE deals announced in 2004 amounted to R62 billion, while 350 deals in 2005 amounted to R55 billion. These are not trivial amounts, and whilst a significant proportion of this funding is provided by public investment institutions, the major proportion is drawn from the private sector. In such circumstances, it is not surprising that the likes of the ‘fab four’ are so closely associated with established financial sector institutions and conglomerates.
Proposition 6
There have been three phases of black empowerment with regard to the private sector. The first phase of advance of black ownership was halted by the ‘Asian crisis’ of 1997-98. The second phase, inaugurated by the Black Economic Empowerment Commission reporting early 2001, was to see the state adopting a more assertive policy towards BEE through charters etc. The third and current phase is seeking to respond to criticisms that BEE has favoured only an elite by requiring ‘Broad based black empowerment’ (BBBE).
The initial burst of empowerment deals saw black business reportedly capturing up to ten per cent of shares on the JSE between 1994 and 1997 (Jacobs, 2002). By the end of the decade this proportion had collapsed to between 1 per cent (Jacobs, 2002) and 3.8 per cent (Singh, 2001). The reasons are clear. Apart from a substantial number of early deals being politically driven during a period when the conglomerates were beginning to ‘unbundle’, most black inroads were made into sectors of industry which were highly vulnerable to fluctuations in the global market. Operating on borrowed money, many came unstuck when the JSE crashed in 1997, and thereafter, between 1998 and 2003, the stock market performed poorly. The number of BEE deals concluded in the late 1990s slumped following the stock market collapse (Jacobs, 2002). Yet the fundamental point was that black business was involved primarily in financial investment rather than entrepreneurship. Black investor groups typically took up less than 20 per cent of equity in companies offered to them, meaning that they did not acquire executive control. In effect, they became investment trusts which were not operationally involved in the underlying investment; and as the principal risk lay with the lending financial institutions, BEE companies were not really motivated to add value to their investments because they had little to lose (Southall, 2004a:319).
The second phase of BEE was inaugurated by the report of the BEEC in early 2001. This bemoaned the limited progress of BEE hitherto and proposed that government adopt a wide-ranging, state driven programme to drive more concerted progress. The government responded swiftly, with Mbeki announcing the drawing up of a ‘Transformation Charter’ that would set BEE benchmarks, timeframes and procedures, and eliminate uncertainty amongst investors (Southall, 2004a:323). There followed a flurry of legislation (e.g. the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Act of 2002 which vested all mineral rights in future in the state and laid down BEE targets which eventuated in the Mining Charter); proposed laws (e.g. a bill drawn up by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) which broadened the definition of black empowerment to include the notion of a ‘black empowered company’ as one with just 25.1 per cent black ownership in order to encourage white companies to relinquish part of their equity without fear of losing control); and announcement that the government would draw up a global empowerment charter which could serve as a model for charters in different sectors of industry.
These initiatives forced the pace of change, as companies scrambled to set in place black ownership, recruitment and other targets. However, the progress of BEE was hampered by the relatively slow pace of stock market recovery. BusinessMap (2004:55-56), which considers 35 per cent ownership of equity as indicating control, recorded that by the end of 2003, the number of black-controlled companies on the JSE stood at 21, far from its peak in August 1991 of 38, although in the same period market capitalisation of black controlled firms had risen from R53 billion to R58 billion. Yet the factor which attracted most public attention was that the principal BEE deals appeared inexorably to favour a small empowerment elite, such criticisms focusing heavily upon the apparent enrichment of the ‘fab four’. BEE heavyweight companies continued to dominate, with DTI reporting that 72 per cent of the total BEE deal value in 2003 involved at least one of six BEE heavyweights (Southall, 2006b:192).
Such debate reached fever pitch with announcement of the Standard Bank and Barclays/ABSA deals in late 2004. Although the banks touted the deals as implementing ‘broad-based empowerment’, they were seen as empowering ‘BEE– llionaires’. Even if the discussion failed to grapple with how to propel blacks to the top of the corporate heap without hugely enriching them, it did highlight the related issues of how to widen black participation in capitalism whilst simultaneously rendering that capitalism more responsive to the needs of the entire population.
The third phase, heralded by the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Act of 2003, sought to consolidate BEE through the issue of ten codes of good practice (to which sectoral charters would have to conform). A first round tabled four of the codes which covered the conceptual framework of BEE, measurement of ownership, measurement of management and control, and interpretations of the individual statements. The second round, introduced in December 2005, covered employment equity, skills development, preferential procurement, enterprise development, residual matters, and measurement of qualifying small enterprises. Together, the codes of good practice provide the basis for a ‘generic scorecard’ against which firms' empowerment credentials will be measured when they compete for government contracts. BEE charters will be required either to prove that their construction has been sufficiently consultative and embodies the broad objectives of the BBBEE Act (becoming legally binding on state and public entities), or (more stringently) to prove to an independent third party that they embody all the requirements of the Act and the generic scorecard (SAIRR, 2004/5:236-237).
While the upturn in the stockmarket since 2004 has seen something of a recovery in BEE (BusinessMap, 2006), many within the corporate sector fear that the new emphasis upon broad-based empowerment will lead to South African capitalism becoming increasingly entrapped in a web of red tape.
Proposition 7
The widespread critique of BEE as having favoured only an elite is exaggerated, as black ownership and control is extending across different levels and sectors of the economy.
First, research into BEE privileges deals conducted through the JSE. These are generally the most public, the most noticed by asset managers, and the most ‘measurable’ by organisations like BusinessMap and Empowerdex. These organisations' data-gathering is invaluable, yet they freely admit that it is not comprehensive, as not all BEE deals concern companies registered on the stock exchange. While a large proportion of the value of recorded deals concerns just a few major black companies, the remaining value involving other concerns is not insignificant. For instance, Deputy Minister of Finance Mandisi Mpahlwa has stated that 40 per cent of the transaction value of BEE deals completed in 2004 involved broad-based entities and at least 6.4 per cent involved employees. Hence I have argued elsewhere that
BEE deals, large and small, are being concluded over a wide array of sectors, by a wide array of BEE entities (owned variously by individuals, managers, employees, investment trusts and unions), and through a variety of devices (outright purchase, loan purchase, joint ventures with established firms, buyouts and partnerships) (Southall, 2006b:196).
Third, the normal measurements of BEE are mainly urban-based and private-sector oriented, systematically excluding other forms of procurement activity. This means that we know very little about what contracts are offered, and to whom, by provincial and local governments around the country. Anecdotal evidence indicates that there is widespread corruption in the allocation of contracts at these levels, with ANC functionaries making decisions behind closed doors and favouring family and friends. This requires further research; provincial and local governments have considerable spending power, which seems to be increasingly directed towards black owned firms, many of them very small, and very local.
Proposition 8
Given the centrality of political leverage to the promotion of BEE and the structure of the South African economy, black capitalism and black capitalists are as likely to tend towards ‘cronyism’ and ‘compradorism’ as ‘Weberianism’ and ‘patriotism’.
In practice, the centrality of political leverage to the promotion of BEE works to undermine ‘patriotism’ and encourage a tendency towards ‘compradorism’ (the subordination of local capitalists in post-colonial countries to imperial capital) and ‘cronyism’ (the interlocking of capitalism with the state based on personal political connections which blur the distinction between legality and illegality). This is a hugely contested issue, driven by media revelations of many instances of corruption, the ‘struggle backgrounds’ of many of the new black capitalist moguls, the ANC's own involvement in various business ventures, the movement of individuals from party and state to business, and the suspected favouring of politically wellconnected individuals in the allocation of contracts at all levels of government. However, rather than empirical citation, my concern here is to sketch the logic inherent in the dynamics of BEE explored above. I would like to reduce this to a number of sub-propositions.
First, blacks' lack of capital dictates a dependence upon state and/or large scale capital to acquire the necessary funding to undertake business ventures. In this regard, black capitalists today are very much following the same path undertaken by Afrikaner capitalists from the 1920s on.
Second, political connections are therefore at a premium. The ANC's control of the state predisposes the latter to favour those in good standing with the party; politicians and senior civil servants moving across to the private sector will have a good sense of future business opportunities emanating from government departments; and white and multi-national firms seek out the politically influential in order to ingratiate themselves with government.
Third, the elite at the apex of empowerment is small and strongly inter-connected by political, emergent class, personal and often family ties, and largely committed to BEE as a socially just and politically necessary way of correcting past racial imbalances. Political shortcuts may therefore be seen as morally if not legally justifiable.
Fourth, despite party injunctions to the ‘patriotic bourgeoisie’ to consciously use their wealth, power and investments to promote the black community as a whole, their high level of indebtedness predisposes many black capitalists to realizing short-term gains rather than emphasising long term profitability. The urgency towards short-term gain may also encourage a willingness to cut legal corners and lapse into criminality.
Finally, the massive inequalities of wealth in South Africa, and the poverty and hardships from which many black capitalists have come, predisposes many not to austerity and saving but to becoming, in the words of Phumzile Mlambo-Ncuka (now Deputy President), ‘filthy rich’ (Bond, 2000:19), and emulating the opulent lifestyles of their white counterparts.
All this is not necessarily to contest the views of commentators such as Randall (1996) and Iheduru (2004) that BEE is providing the basis for the evolution of a significant black capitalist class with the capacity to promote growth in the ANC's South Africa. Nor is it to suggest that black capitalists are any more inherently ‘corrupt’ than their white counterparts, or indeed capitalists in countries as diverse as the USA, Italy, Japan or Indonesia. Nor indeed, is it to ignore the quite extensive measures which the government has sought to put in place to prevent ‘undue influence by business’ (Sangweni, 2006). But it is to say that textbook separations of economics from politics do not reflect the realities of modern corporate capitalism, especially in countries such as today's South Africa whose historical background of highly uneven development normally impels the state to assume a central developmental role.
Proposition 9
The ANC's pursuit of the NDR through a mix of the market and ‘the developmental state’ has fostered the rapid expansion of the black middle class. However, the trend towards the deracialisation of the upper levels of the class structure has had little positive impact upon working class and poor South Africans.
Much of the evolving debate about the black middle class involves a complex numbers game, this in turn following upon issues of definition. Estimates of its present size range from 1.6 to 3.6 million people out of a present population of around 44 million. Taking an highly inclusive definition from top (professionals and managers) to bottom (white collar workers), around 74 per cent of the white workforce can be said to be middle class, whereas only around 27 per cent of the African formally employed workforce and only around 30 per cent of the entire black (African, Coloured and Indian) formally employed workforce can be said to be middle class (calculated from Table 1, Southall 2004b). Adopting a much more exclusive definition, Schlemmer (2005:5) argues that the core African middle class was as small as only 11 per cent of the entire middle class in 2004.
Whatever definition we take of the African or wider black middle class, evidence shows that it is growing rapidly. Using the Livings Standards Measure (LSM) customarily employed by marketing surveys, Schlemmer (2005:4) reports that ‘the number of Africans in the top LSM category has grown by a phenomenal 21 per cent a year over the decade to 2003, more than eight times faster than the adult population as a whole’. However, the gains of increased upward class mobility have not been equally spread. ‘State managers’ and the ‘corporate black bourgeoisie’ have done considerably better than the ‘civil petty bourgeoisie’ (the bulk of black civil servants and ‘lower professionals’). The ‘trading petty-bourgeoisie’ has done particularly badly, despite BEE, in part because of BEE's principal orientation towards the formal and core economy, in part because of the limitations on its growth imposed by GEAR and the persistence of dramatically high levels of unemployment (Southall, 2004b). Thus although increasing numbers of blacks are joining the middle-class, South Africa is seeing a widening income gap between rich and poor.
Proposition 10
Malaysian experience suggests that affirmative action will only work to promote ‘a better life for all’ if it is systematically combined with anti-poverty strategies.
The NEP was constructed around two ‘prongs’: first, the eradication of poverty, regardless of race; second, the restructuring of Malaysian society in order to ‘reduce and eventually eliminate the identification of race with economic function’ (Jomo 1988:256). This included a programme of preferential recruitment for Malays and an accompanying drive to rectify the inter-racial imbalance in the ownership and control of wealth by achieving at least 30 per cent ownership and management of commercial and industrial activities by Malays and other indigenous groups by 1990.
By 1987, it was estimated that the absolute numbers of people living in poverty had fallen to 2.5 million from 4.6 million in 1973; the overall incidence of poverty had fallen to 15 per cent, and the incidence of rural poverty had been halved; and by 1990 the share of equity accruing to Bumiputra (indigenous people, i.e. mostly Malays), albeit in state as well as individual forms, was 20 per cent, which although short of the government's target represented a considerable transformation (Elmsley, 1996:33, 60-63). Such bare statistics require numerous qualifications. For instance, the reduction of poverty was achieved in the context of economic growth much helped by dramatic increases in commodity prices for rubber and tin (key products of the Malaysian economy) in the 1970s and 1980s, and shifts in the pattern of ownership have in the eyes of some been achieved at the severe cost of the promotion of ‘crony capitalism’. Nonetheless, whatever the causality, the implementation of the NEP has been accompanied by a level of (inter-racial and other) redistribution with growth which has been the envy of many other states, including South Africa. Even if, as many argue, the quality of Malaysian democracy has been severely compromised by an authoritarian ‘developmental state’, the relevance of the comparison for South Africa is precisely that in a context where the urgency of rapid growth has been emphasised, it has been accompanied by the systematic combination of affirmative action with a concerted anti-poverty strategy.
Concluding Note
The virtue of ending this review of BEE with reference to Malaysia, where the redistribution with growth formula has been associated with overall political stability, is that it reminds us that the racial inequality that the ANC inherited in 1994 constituted an unviable basis for the consolidation of a new and fragile democracy. At that time, many believed that through the economic strategy outlined by the RDP, redistribution could be combined with growth and development. However, even from within the context of the more assertively capitalist policies pursued since 1996, there is a strong case for arguing that BEE (or some similar statedriven programme to correct racial imbalances) is a necessity if South Africa is to avoid the dismal fate of neighbouring Zimbabwe. Yet the key question posed is whether the ANC is doing enough to combine its empowerment strategies with delivering ‘a better life for all’.